of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering

Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT

Volume 39, 34 /  August 2024

Fall is nearly upon us, along with a return to fixed academic schedules and business timelines. I hope you have had a chance to rest and rejuvenate with a fine summer holiday. This is my first letter as CASE president, and I’m excited to report that plans are underway for the 50th CASE Annual Meeting and Dinner, the call for new members, the process to award the CT Medal of Science on behalf of the Office of the Governor, and our continued service to the people and state of Connecticut on science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) issues.

CASE will transmit the 2025 Call for New Member Nominations in early October. To broaden the scope of our membership and further strengthen the breadth of resources available to meet the STEMM-related needs of those we serve, CASE leadership is requesting that our members identify individuals with STEMM-related backgrounds and experience not currently represented or underrepresented in our membership.

Gualberto Ruaño, chair of the CASE’s Broadening Participation Committee, shared that, “As a service organization, it is critical that CASE’s leadership in STEMM reflects the highest level of achievement across a broad range of disciplines and sectors. The support and assistance of our members in the nomination process will enable our organization to reach this goal.”

A request to our readership: If you are an accomplished STEMM professional who would like to be considered for nomination to the Academy, please contact Terri Clark (email or 860-754-8191) or Karen Cohen (email or 860-208-5801) at the CASE office for more information about the nomination process.

I would like to thank John Kadow for his leadership of CASE as president for the past two years. John’s tenure began during the waning but still active COVID-19 pandemic, and he guided the organization through virtual meetings and the transition back to in-person events. He led the organization through significant challenges, and under his leadership, we continued to highlight the good work being done in our state’s STEMM community through the CASE Bulletin, LinkedIn, and Learning & Living STEMM in Connecticut podcast series. Our fiscal circumstances are highly favorable, given John’s effective work with Terri Clark and the Executive Committee.

It is my pleasure to work intensely with John in his role as immediate past president, and I welcome working with Amy Howell, our new vice president/president-elect. Rounding out the core team are Regis Matzie, our new treasurer, and Tanimu Deleon, our new secretary. Past treasurer Ed Murphy and secretary Eric Donkor are to be thanked most sincerely for their years of service in those posts, as is Christine Broadbridge, who has completed her term as immediate past president! Your leadership team is committed to supporting our members and serving the people and the state of Connecticut in STEMM discovery, application, and promotion.

Sten Vermond, President
CT Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE)
Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT

Comments about this edition of the Bulletin are welcome via tclark@ctcase.org.

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To learn more about the
Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, please visit ctcase.org.

Science and Engineering Notes from Around Connecticut

As a crucial component in engaging and supporting current and future farmers, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture (CT DoAg) created working groups focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). One outcome is a report outlining the barriers to minority farmers along with programs and proposals meant to open opportunities, including incubators, agricultural apprenticeships, cooperative farming, urban farming programs, community land trusts, and a partnership between CT DoAg and Connecticut Farmland Trust that helps connect beginning and established farmers. Read more.

CASE Member Rachel O’Neill, director of UConn’s Institute for Systems Genomics, and her lab are contributing to an international groundbreaking new genome sequencing effort known as the Ruminant Telomere-to-Telomere consortium, or RT2T, that is aiming to make history by publishing the complete genomes of over 300 species of ruminant animals, ranging from narwhals to dairy cows. Read more.

Connecticut’s agriculture industry, including producers, food businesses, and non-profits sourcing CT Grown farm products, now have access to new one-on-one business technical assistance and grant coaching. Connecticut Department of Agriculture (CT DoAg) is utilizing funds available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Resilient Food System Infrastructure (RFSI) program to contract with three separate entities to provide an array of services, including but not limited to, market diversification and development, supply chain coordination, and business and financial planning. Read more.

CASE Member Gary Désir will step down as chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and chief of Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) at the end of his term on June 30, 2025. He will continue his research as the Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine and will remain the vice provost for faculty development and diversity. He was the first person of African descent to chair a YSM department when he was appointed in 2013. Under his leadership, the department doubled its National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, increased its number of underrepresented in medicine (URiM) faculty, and narrowed the gap between its percentage of male and female professors. Gary is a named inventor on several patents and the scientific founder of two biotechnology companies. Honored by the American Heart Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, the American Clinical and Climatological Association, the Association of American Physicians, and CASE.

CASE Member Valentina Greco, the Carolyn Walch Slayman Professor of Genetics at Yale School of Medicine, was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, one of the highest honors in biomedical science. Read more.

The UConn Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, received funding from the Connecticut Breast Health Initiative (CT BHI) to study how social and lifestyle factors may accelerate aging in adults with a history of breast cancer. They will collaborate with professors in the Department of Statistics, including CASE Member Jun Yan, professor of statistics, and research fellow, Center for Population Health, to explore how unemployment, education, racial discrimination, and food and housing insecurity impact the aging process in adults diagnosed with breast cancer. Read more.

CASE Member Ki H. Chon, the Krenicki Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UConn, has been named a 2024 UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor. Ki is a pioneer in the field of biosignal processing and wearable devices, with his work on real-time detection of atrial fibrillation and other physiological anomalies via mobile and wearable technology platforms positioning him at the forefront of biomedical engineering. Read more.

Connecticut has been a cradle of significant inventions in American history, now chronicled in “Innovation in Connecticut.” The documentary from UConn’s Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation features interviews with CASE Members Radenka Maric, UConn President, and Pamir Alpay, UConn’s vice president for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship, as well as former US Senator Chris Dodd and Governor Ned Lamont. The documentary premieres Sept. 25, 2024, on Connecticut public television. Read more.

According to a survey by QR Code Generator – its name clearly illustrates what it does – in the United States, Connecticut is home to the highest rate of health data breaches, with 1.5 breaches per 100 health firms from 2009 through May 2024. That number was 71% above the national breach average of 0.88. The state, with 7,680 health firms within its borders, has had 115 such data breaches affecting 3.47 million individuals, or an average of 30,190 per breach. More than half of those breaches – 52% – were the result of hacking or IT incidents, according to QR Code Generator. Read more.

On Sept. 4, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA) will host the Connecticut Economy conference, exploring the state’s economic challenges and the opportunities for unlocking Connecticut’s enormous potential. Honorary Member Josh Geballe, Yale University’s senior associate provost for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, will be the event’s featured speaker, highlighting innovation's critical role in driving economic growth and opportunity. Learn more and register. 

In July, a delegation of officials from Connecticut traveled to Germany on an economic development mission, meeting with the leadership of several German-based companies to discuss expanding their businesses in Connecticut. The state delegation included representatives from the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Innovations, and AdvanceCT. Germany is Connecticut’s largest export market, as a recipient of 14% of the state’s total goods exports in 2023. Read more.

Southern Connecticut State University’s (SCSU) Innovation Hub (i-Hub) received a 2024 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award from Insight Into Diversity magazine. This award honors colleges and universities that encourage and assist students from underrepresented groups to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). SCSU’s i-Hub will be featured, along with 82 other recipients, in the September 2024 issue of the magazine. Read more.

Governor Ned Lamont signed an executive order directing the establishment of the Connecticut Office of Equity and Opportunity – a new state office that will be responsible for leading Connecticut’s efforts to ensure that state government is a leader in equity and inclusion with the goals of eliminating institutional and systemic barriers and creating opportunity and access for all those it serves and employs. Read more.

On a recent episode of the Made in America podcast, Christina Lampe-Onnerud, the CEO of Connecticut’s own Cadenza Innovation, talks about the transformative potential of battery storage technology and its ability to significantly impact safety, electricity costs, grid resilience, and sustainable energy consumption. Listen here.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected the Power Up New England proposal submitted by Connecticut, and its neighboring New England states to receive an award of up to $389 million through the second round of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s competitive Grid Innovation Program (GIP). Power Up features significant investments in regional electric infrastructure, which will provide the New England region with access to thousands of megawatts of offshore wind, greater resource diversity, and increased reliability while lowering consumer costs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Read more.

As extreme weather events increase in frequency, UConn is leading a collaboration to make the northeastern power grid more resilient with grant funding from the Department of Energy (DOE). “The Northeastern United States is the exemplar regional case for energy transition to electrification and renewables while highly exposed to risk of disasters from natural hazards, such as hurricanes, severe Nor’easters, and winter storms,” said CASE Member Emmanouil Anagnostou, Interim Director of the UConn Tech Park and Director of the Eversource Energy Center. Read more.

How do you make salty water drinkable? The problem is now growing more pressing as salinity levels creep up in freshwater. Rising sea levels, excessive groundwater extraction, field fertilization, and other human activities are making some bodies of water several times saltier than they were a few decades ago. CASE Member Menachem Elimelech, the Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, was featured in a recent article in Nature, discussing the new challenges of dealing with brine. Read more.

In the largest round of open space protection grants in more than a decade, the state has awarded $14.5 million to aid in the purchase and protection of more than 2,626 acres of open space in 18 municipalities across Connecticut. The grants are funded through the Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program and the Urban Green and Community Gardens Grant Program, both administered by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). Read more.

Connecticut Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani said there are 111 confirmed cases of pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough. This is a significant increase from last year when there was a total of 11 cases. Read more.

On July 8, the Connecticut Department of Public Health announced that a total of 11 Connecticut residents have been diagnosed with mpox so far this year. All 11 patients are between the ages of 20 and 50, and reside in Fairfield, New Haven, New London and Hartford counties. The majority of these patients have not been hospitalized. In 2023, only four Connecticut residents were diagnosed with mpox following 145 cases in 2022. Read more.

George Bollas, CASE Member and UConn Chair of the Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that UConn is hosting a Department of Energy and National Science Foundation free in-person and virtual workshop on Digital Twins For Manufacturing at UConn’s Innovation Partnership Building at the UConn Tech Park Nov. 11-14. If interested, registration is limited. Register here.

Nine Connecticut-based research groups have received one-year seed grants for exploratory quantum projects directly relevant to Connecticut industries, including aerospace, biotech, and life sciences. Funded by UConn and Yale University and distributed via QuantumCT, CASE Members are active in many of these seed projects to help QuantumCT plan long-term research eligible for competitive funding through the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines. Read more.

Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology has available Digital Thread Training for employees of Defense Industrial Base (DIB) companies, including Awareness, Digital Design, Digital Manufacturing, Quality Assurance, and Inspection. For more information.

The Southwest Connecticut Tech Hub is a community that connects the region’s tech employers with top tech talent. The tech Hub represents more than 50 of the region’s tech-enabled and data-dependent companies. The hub hosts a free, co-work collective for entrepreneurs and startups every Thursday from 9AM-12PM. Learn more. 

Forty-five accomplished Connecticut women will be honored on October 22nd for their achievements in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) at the 19th annual Women of Innovation® awards, hosted by the Connecticut Technology Council. Among them is CASE member Caroline Dealy, associate professor of orthodontics and biomedical engineering at the School of Dental Medicine and Departments of Orthopedic Surgery and Cell Biology at the School of Medicine, University of Connecticut. Snigtha Mohanraj is also recognized as a rising senior at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School in West Haven. Snigtha is being recognized in the Youth Innovation and Leadership category, and she was a guest on the CASE Podcast, Learning and Living STEMM in Connecticut, where she shared insights into her research and award-winning solutions for water contamination issues. Read more.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) has received a $38.9 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to purchase 46 battery electric buses and install 29 chargers for the CTfastrak bus rapid transit service to help convert CTfastrak to an all-electric bus fleet. Read more.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Atlas Public Policy, Georgetown Climate Center, and the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) recently launched the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program Equity Dashboard to aid policymakers as they update NEVI state plans. Read more.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) is awarding more than $12 million in grants to 17 towns and cities throughout the state under the Community Connectivity Grant Program. The grants will provide financial support for local infrastructure initiatives that make conditions safer, more accommodating, and equitable for pedestrians and bicyclists in urban, suburban, and rural centers. Read more.

Items that appear in the In Brief section are compiled from previously
published sources including newspaper accounts and press releases.  

The following is excerpted from press releases and other news reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (nationalacademies.org).

The lack of a clear and consistent definition for Long COVID presents challenges for policymakers, researchers, public health professionals, clinicians, support services, and patients. As such, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health asked the National Academies to assemble a committee of experts to produce a consensus definition for Long COVID. The resulting report, A Long COVID Definition: A Chronic, Systemic Disease State with Profound Consequences, presents the 2024 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Long COVID Definition, developed based on findings reported in existing literature, as well as stakeholder and patient input. Read more. 

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technology underscores the need for public and private institutions to understand the impact in every sector of society. AI offers tremendous benefits and opportunities but also hazards and challenges, many of which remain unknown. NASEM convened a workshop last year to discuss the effects of the AI revolution on policy, organizational governance, and strategic cooperation among sectors in the research landscape. They have released a report of the workshop proceedings: Artificial Intelligence at the Nexus of Collaboration, Competition, and Change. Read more.

About 30,000 people in the United States are living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a rapidly progressive, fatal neurological disease affecting individuals, caregivers, at-risk genetic carriers, and others. In 2022, Congress directed the National Institutes of Health to commission a National Academies committee of experts to recommend key actions public, private, and nonprofit sectors should take to make ALS a livable disease within the next 10 years. The resulting report focuses on an integrated ALS multidisciplinary care and research system to help facilitate earlier diagnosis and connections to specialty care. Read more.

In 2018, the National Academies released Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space. It identified key science questions and prioritized observational needs to advance U.S. efforts in Earth science and support critical applications such as climate modeling and weather prediction. In the past few years, the need for actionable data and better scientific information on Earth's interacting systems has increased in urgency as global climate change accelerates and the number of extreme weather events increases. At the request of NASA, this mid-term assessment evaluates progress and recommends actions to meet decadal survey priorities. This report explores ways that NASA's Earth Science Division can maintain programmatic balance, improve alignment with decadal survey priorities, and prepare for the next decadal survey. Read more.

Women in the United States experience a higher prevalence of many chronic conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, depression, and osteoporosis, than men; they also experience female-specific conditions, such as endometriosis and pelvic floor disorders. A lack of research into both the biological and social factors that influence these conditions greatly hinders diagnosis, treatment, and prevention efforts. The National Institutes of Health's Office of Research on Women's Health asked the National Academies to convene an expert committee to identify gaps in the science on chronic conditions that are specific to or predominantly impact women or affect women differently. From that analysis, the committee proposed a research agenda. This report presents their conclusions and recommendations. Read more.

Concerted efforts to deepen understanding of RNA modifications and their role in living systems hold the potential to advance human health, improve crop yields, and address other pressing societal challenges. RNA modifications are known to be pivotal players in nearly all biological processes, and their dysregulation has been implicated in a wide range of human diseases and disorders. Yet, our knowledge of RNA modifications remains incomplete, hindered by current technological limitations. This report calls for a focused, large-scale effort to accelerate technological innovation to harness the full potential of RNA modifications to address pressing societal challenges, proposing a roadmap of innovation that will make it possible for any RNA from any biological system to be sequenced end-to-end with all of its modifications - a capability that could lead to more personalized and targeted treatments and instigate transformative changes across various sectors beyond health and medicine. Read more. 

Since its establishment in 1996, the Forum on Microbial Threats has provided a platform for leaders from a wide range of disciplines and industries to debate and collaborate on the most effective ways to understand, anticipate, and manage emerging infectious diseases. The world still grapples with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time as it addresses other infectious disease threats from highly pathogenic avian influenza, the human-to-human transmission of monkeypox, to the spread of endemic zoonotic pathogens, including West Nile virus. In 2023, the forum held two workshops on infection-associated chronic illnesses and the mitigation of arboviral threats (Dengue, Yellow Fever, and tick-borne encephalitis). The forum also continued to work closely with the One Health Action Collaborative and remained committed to both cross-disciplinary and community public health discourse.  Read more. 

The purpose of the Academy is to "provide guidance to the people and the government of the State of Connecticut... in the application of science and engineering to the economic and social welfare." 

OFFICERS OF THE ACADEMY

Sten Vermund, President
Yale School of Public Health

Amy R. Howell, Vice President/President-Elect
University of Connecticut

Tanimu Deleon, Secretary
General Dynamics, Electric Boat

Regis Matzie, Treasurer
RAMatzie Nuclear Technology Consulting, LLC

John Kadow, Past President
Alphina Therapeutics

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Terri Clark

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Karen Cohen

EDITORS
Leon Pintsov, Executive Editor - Engineering
Pitney Bowes, Inc. (ret.)

Mike Genel, Executive Editor - Medicine
Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics
Yale University School of Medicine
CASE President, 2008-2010

Carolyn Teschke, Executive Editor - Science
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of Connecticut

COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
Rebecca Mead, INQ Creative

The Bulletin is published by the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, Inc, 222 Pitkin Street, Suite 101, East Hartford, Connecticut, 06108. 860.282.4229, tclark@ctcase.org. To subscribe, visit ctcase.org.

The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering is a private, nonprofit public service organization established by Special Act No. 76-53 of the Connecticut General Assembly.

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